Collector’s Bug Going Around

Wash your hands, ladies and gents. Wear a dry waller’s mask. If you’re going to a show this summer, take precautions! And know that despite your very best efforts, you’re likely to leave the show with a bug — a collector’s bug.

I have never cooked with lard. Shoot, I’ve never been under the same roof with lard. Never raised hogs, never lived on a farm, never waxed nostalgic for old food tins…until I became acquainted with John Harvey’s collection of antique lard tins (see his collection — John Harvey’sCollection of Antique Lard Tins — if you dare!). Now I have the bug; I’m on the prowl for lard tins, of all things.

This bug is nothing to be sneezed at. You can be at a show, minding your own business, when all of a sudden something catches your eye. A handsomely restored horse-drawn implement, a vintage porcelain sign the seller found in the barn, a wreck of a tractor begging for just a little TLC…Next thing you know, you’ve bought one — “just one,” because you admire the design or the artistry or the rarity of the piece. Ha! I’ve seen this movie before. By that point, you’re a goner. It’s like the old ad for potato chips: Bet you can’t eat just one!

In this issue of Farm Collector, we take a gander at collections of everything from steam traction engines to IHC Electrall systems to horse-drawn implements to lard tins. Neat collections; neat collectors – and just enough exposure to infect you with the bug. But it’s all good clean fun. So go ahead, snoop around at a show or two; let down your defenses. A little dose of collector’s fever never killed anybody! FC

P.S. Time flies…today it’s show season; tomorrow we’ll be publishing your best photos from show season ’14! Remember to snap some shots of your favorites on the show circuit for inclusion in our February 2015 Show Photo issue. More details coming next month!